SH Archive The Cathedral of St. Paul, Minnesota

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There have been four Roman Catholic cathedrals in St. Paul. The first three were built between 1841 and 1858. The fourth, and the most architecturally distinctive, opened in 1915. Since then, no building in the Twin Cities has approached it in ambition or magnificence.

The massive granite cathedral at the foot of Summit and Selby Avenues is the fourth in the history of the archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. The first was Father Lucien Galtier’s log-cabin Chapel of St. Paul, elevated to the status of cathedral with the 1851 arrival of Bishop Joseph Cretin. A three-floor brick building succeeded it later in 1851; a bigger one in stone followed in 1856. Both stood in downtown St. Paul.

Between 1850 and 1900 St. Paul grew from a village to a city of over 160,000. Many of the new citizens were Roman Catholics, mostly of German and Irish origin. In 1904 Archbishop John Ireland (1838–1918), a potato-famine Irish immigrant and a protégé of Joseph Cretin’s, decided to build yet another cathedral.

Ireland hired French architect Emmanuel Masqueray (1861–1917). Together they conceived a building with a grandeur rivaled only by Cass Gilbert’s state capitol, completed in 1906.

The Cathedral of St. Paul: a masterpiece dreamed up by Archbishop John Ireland and architect Emanuel Masqueray | MinnPost

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Username: BrokenAgate
Date: 2019-03-25 18:47:55
Reaction Score: 1

What a beautiful structure! Surprised it is still standing. Very suspicious about that one photo showing the actual construction. Looks more like extensive repair work. Most of the building is already there.

There have been four Roman Catholic cathedrals in St. Paul. The first three were built between 1841 and 1858

Three cathedrals built in a 17-year timespan? Even if we are talking about three different construction companies working simultaneously, that's a lot of work in a short time, in an era when there couldn't have been much of a population base to support such efforts. Pictures always show hardly anyone walking around in these giant cities, so I wonder if there really were 160,000 people in St. Paul at these times. I guess they all opened their own cathedral construction businesses.

 

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Username: Degenerate
Date: 2020-01-26 05:27:15
Reaction Score: 1

Another very interesting thing i noticed in my research on this building is that(surprise, surprise) there was no cross on top of it when it was first built. Or for decades afterwards.

I will note that it did not have a weathervane/antenna or statue on top either in any I found. There are many with the top cropped out however(who makes a painting/pic of a beautiful building and purposefully cuts off the top 10% of the building lol)

It also shows up in paintings with a clearly gold roof, as opposed to the dark metal cap it has today. The tynpanums and other engraved areas have also very clearly been removed.

There are a few pictures of its construction which to me look like the top is just edited out. Allegedly it got its steeple later, but there are pictures of it with it from its alleged year of construction. There are also many pictures and paintings dated before it was allegedly built